Insight into an Indigenous knowledge system and data management
Leasi Vanessa Lee Raymond, left, and Anamaq Margaret Rudolf, right, speak about their part in their book chapters.
October 10, 2025
By Yuri Bult-Ito
Leasi Vanessa Lee Raymond, ACEP’s deputy director for strategic initiatives, was one of the three local authors featured during a book reading event in September.
Her work, “Talofae, Your Ancestors Are Gossiping about Your Data Management Plan,” explores an Indigenous value system. This chapter, as part of a larger book, focuses on providing a framework for creating an Indigenous-informed and culturally appropriate data management plan.
Raymond shared with the audience gathered at Solstice Books in Fairbanks that while she has worked a great deal on Indigenous data, she felt she had never been reflected in the work from a culturally specific way.
“I’ve never heard anyone write about Samoa and data management,” said Raymond, who has Samoan heritage.
This reflection brought her a sense of urgency to write her chapter, which explores data, culture and the sacred.
She said that talking about spirituality and sacredness in data science, how to incorporate spirituality into day-to-day activities, was tricky.
The chapter was a culmination of her effort to talk about Samoan data management in the context of its knowledge system.
Raymond’s chapter is part of the book, “,” a work created solely by Indigenous people.
The other presenters were Anamaq Margaret Rudolf and Ch’igiioonta’ She Holds a Child. Rudolf is a postdoctoral researcher at the UAF International Arctic Research Center, who wrote a chapter for the same book. Ch’igiioonta’s book, “Ïyaġaaġmiut People Who Live Among the Rock Caches,” focuses on the history of the Nendaaghe Dena’ina people and the forced relocation they experienced across the Western Brooks Range of Ӱpro.